As a general rule, I have a small list of countries that I'd consider moving to if, say, the Constitution Party's candidate was elected President, of if a draft was approved, or if the **AA managed to buy majority control of the House & Senate and got a law passed that we technically don't own any of the books, DVDs, music, and whatever we have in our houses (at least as far as usage rights are concerned).

Well, Europe just got lopped off my list, after I read this story which happened last week, which I somehow missed.

(Article from Deutsche Welle news)

In short, after all the legislation that has been pushed in Germany after two allegedly video-game related murders (one a shooting at a high school by a youth who played a lot of Counterstrike, and another two teenagers who called themselves "Sephiroth" and "Reno" after the characters from Final Fantasy VII, and committed a series of murders and kidnappings), a growing number of people within the German government are calling for EU wide anti-video game legislation.

Well, I'd already cut England off the list due to the pervasive surveillance cameras, high gas prices (in comparison to US gas prices), the poor conversion rate and other things.

France had been cut off of the list because of the pervasive poor bureaucracy (the fact that they, by all accounts, learned nothing from the race riots in Paris housing projects, which are generally inhabited by poor, unemployed Muslim immigrants) - and the fact that it's incredibly hard to fire somebody from a job, even if they're a poor employee, and myriad other related issues.

Greece had been cut off the list due their de facto ban (which still stands, by the way) on internet cafes and video game arcades.

Germany went off the list when they were proposing domestic laws along the lines of the one I'm livid over.

Russia had been cut off the list due to the pervasive corruption, as well as several other Eastern European countries.

But Spain was still on the list (I have a passing knowledge of Spanish, enough to work as the building blocks to become more fluent), Italy was still on the list, Sweden, Denmark and Belgium were still on the list. If this passes, all of Europe is going off the list, which I consider to be a damn shame.

Switzerland is still there though! ;-)